June 16, 2014

Dear family,
This week was a good week as it always is. This week took a lot of
adusting to having 6 people in the apartment, its defintily a lot
different and a lot harder to keep things in order with 6 people but
we are figuring it out. Every one in the apartment is really cool
though and we all get along great. Its pretty cool, in the apartment
we have a Nigerian, an Elder From Kenya, the Philippines and then the
U.S from Texas and California, so I thought that was pretty cool how
many nationalities we have all in one apartment at once. We had a
really good week this week, it rained A TON this week. On Tuesday and
Wednesday it rained basically for 36 hours strait. I love the rain but
it doesn’t necessarily help out missionary work at all, but it was
still a good  week of proselyiting. This week me and Elder Tolar have
just really been trying to focus on trying to find great families and
then kind of weed out our serious investigators and our not so serious
investigators. Something really sweet happened to us yesterday though.
There is this family that we have started teaching, The daughter is
baptized and the Wife always comes to church and wants to be baptized
but the only thing holding her back is her husband and her are not
married. We got this family from the other missionarys (who were
teaching in our area ) and they said they tried to sit down with the
husband but he is so busy they were never able to sit down with him.
We tried several times this week to sit down with the husband but
everytime we tried things fell through. Well we finally scheduled a
time with him for yesterday and when we showed up … he wasn’t there.
His family said that his sister had called and his auntie just died.
So we were thinking we would just try again next week. We just barely
had pulled out the BOM and started to teach a lesson when some random
guy just came and sat down. Me and Tolar were confused but then he
introduced him self as Bro Randal, the husband of the family. Talk
about a straight up miracle. We were able to have a dope lesson with
the whole family there, give them baptism dates and set up times to go
and see them this week. I am very excited to be teaching this family
and I hope we figure things out and get them all baptized.  In our
teaching pool right now, we are teaching about 5 families so that is
sweet, but about 4 are not legally married so we defintily have our
work cut out for us, so if you guys could pray for these families we
are teaching it would be much appreciated. Thanks a bunch guys. This
week we had a sweet baptism and were able to baptize three more
people. Brother Saytue (gold tooth) Brother Varney (Ex-Convict) and
Bro Smith (Albino). It was such a sweet baptism, I was able to perform
the baptism for all of them. I literally thought that brother Saytue
was a Child on Christmas morning he was so happy. It made me laugh. In
the testimonies given after the baptism, Brother Smith said something
that really stood out to me. He said that he had been thinking about
coming to the church for a long time now and that through the studies
he had made the disicion to join the church. Then he said what really
convinced him was when me and Elder Tolar were able to help him with
love and kindness with one of his problems. He was having a hard time
getting to church on time so we talked with him about it and even
offered to come over on Saturday and help him prepare some things so
he could make it. He said that when we showed that love that he knew
then for sure that the church was true. I had no idea that what we had
done had made such a big impact on him I mean we literally do it for
every one but I just really made me realize how far showing love and
kindness really goes and how much of an impact it can have on
somebody. It was really good. WE don’t have any baptism planned this
week but the following week we will be having a few so that will be
good. The work is just moving along great. Just so many great people I
am meeting. Being a zone leader is defiantly keeping me busy for sure.
Some nights I just get back to the apartment so tired I just want to
die haha but I love it. I hope you all had a wonderful week this week
and happy fathers day to all the fathers this past week. I love you
all so very much and I hope you all have a great week this week. Love
Elder Bowring

Dear Mom and Dad,
First off, Happy fathers day yesterday day, I feel like I should have
been able to call home yesterday but its all good ;) haha. I hope it
was great. I am glad to see that you made it home safe from Montana
last week mom. It looks like you guys had a really good time up there.
I am glad to hear that, it  looked like a blast from the pictures. I
hope you guys were able to get through your busy week and that
everything is going great back home. I love you guys both very much
and I just wanted to let you know that. Thanks for everything you have
done for me. Still no sign of any package. I am starting to forget
that receiving mail is a part of missionary work haha jk but one day
It will come. Things here are great. I am really just enjoying and I
am defintily staying busy. Cant believe it is already Almost July
again. Anyways love you guys. Your African Son
Elder Bowring